List
It would take a list
to tell you what I love
a list of names
of landmarks
of lost and found
It would take a list
to tell you what i love about
moments that melted time
like when your hand and mine
rested on a common countertop
and we laughed at an inside joke
and just for that half-second I saw
your eyes stop and and soften
and i knew that you
had a list, too.
Annotation
Sometimes I want to mark you
like a book,
drag my hot pink highlighter
right across your mouth
and in your margins,
scrawl a world like
"remember" or ask
"why?"
I would underline your eyes,
comment on your fingers
and before I was done,
I would certainly circle
your heart over and over
until my pen wore away
your skin (just a bit)
and the scar might make
you remember me.
My Faults
It's all my fault
The leaves falling fast
The moon's final phase
The way the days
Never seem to last
It's all my fault
Because I believed you
Thought I had to
If you were mine
If you and I
Were tied like twine
Knotted into one mess
That would always hold
But you never were
Mine or even yours
Earthquakes have no warning
Fault lines are pretend
Until they part ways
So I blame myself
Name myself the creator
Of the day’s end
The fall into forever
Crack in the earth
Birth of our demise
Before we were we
I am the red line
Thin on the map
Miles wide across landscape
I swallowed your lies
The fault is mine.
When I Am Supposed to be Listening to You Speak
I think about your hands,
what they hold :
the remote control,
cold bottle of beer,
the doorknob for a moment too long,
the steering wheel when all you want to do
is drive,
the ballpoint pen when all you want to do
is write.
I think about your hands,
what they hold:
a family together
you back
up your promises
down a job
everything in your fist
but not too tight
you let it breathe until it lights
from your palm
free, but without
the home of you, I think.
About your hands,
They hold.
Word Lover
I love the language
like you
the language you lean on
to let me know something I
shouldn't, the language you
let me lick from the space between us
I love the language you leave
inside your mouth
for as long as you can
until it becomes too much
for your tongue
and the only relief is writing it down
whispering it into text, tiny letters
that tell me tell me tell me,
"I love the language. Like you."
